Jammin' on the one

I've finally tried my hand at canning. It has been a long time in coming...trying to overcome some strange little trepidation I had. But I discovered a lovely patch of wild black raspberries at my neighbors house the other day. Neglected, and unpicked. I made a point to introduce myself and get permission to pick. She doesn't like the bushes and would love to have them chopped down, but her husband won't let them go, although he doesn't pick them either. So, I've now been over to pick three times and there will be one or two more forays before the berries are all gone.

This gleaning was about 1.5 Quarts.

This bounty of found, wild food was just the kick in the seat I needed to nudge me into my first canning experience. With newly purchased canning pot and accessories, sterilized jars and Pomona's Universal Pectin in hand I made a batch each of red and black raspberry jam, sweetened with local honey.

The red berries come from our own raspberry patch that we planted when we moved in three years ago. It is bursting with fresh juicy red berries, and we've been out there picking every day, with no sign of letting up!

My first batches...10 jars of summer goodness.


And this morning before work I was off for another check of the black raspberry bush. This time another 1.5 quarts. Enough for a batch of black raspberry cordial or half of another batch of jam. The bushes have a few more pickings left in them, so into the freezer these will go for now.

Getting back into the swing of things with the Independence Day Challenge

By late last season I'd seriously fallen short of my weekly updates on ways I'm meeting the Independence Challenge. In a nutshell, it is a way to record and motivate ourselves to do sometimes small or seemingly insignificant things, over time, to make a big difference in our own lives, our local communities and our planet. If you're still curious, swing on over to Sharon's website to get the full details. I'll be posting my updates here every week, most likely on Tuesday, but hey...let's be flexible.

So, here's the first update of the growing season:

Plant something – Nothing yet.

Harvest something – Nothing yet.

Preserve something – Made a batch of yogurt from some dated milk.

Waste Not – Used some leftover Fall apples from the freezer for a tea-cake for the Lenten luncheon at church. Sent the tea-cakes off to church on some cookie trays reused from a Christmas holiday party. Took a batch of dryer lint, TP rolls and newspaper from packages out to the compost.

Want Not – Assembled the new grow lights (gifted from a co-worker) for seed-starting. Placed our order for summer chicken and fall pork from our local meat CSA. Made up another batch of "shampoo" and "conditioner."

Build Community Food Systems – Started planning a workshop for our local church on local food, food storage and security.t

Eat the Food – Roasted some of the last beets for a maple teryaki broil tonight. Made two oatmeal-tea cakes from a slightly altered family favorite recipe -- using up food storage oatmeal and fruit and nuts. Baked up another roasting pan full of the butternut squash from food storage--delicious packed with lunch or whipped up into butternut pancakes or muffins.

Hang onto your hats, here comes Spring!!!

Inspiration and Obsession

A meme for this quiet pre-holiday Wednesday...

Saying no to:

* Another cup of caffeinated coffee, what was I thinking!
* Too much chaos this weekend. Here's to home and hearth.
* Shopping of any kind in the next several days.

Saying yes to:

* A quiet day in the office for archiving and catching up.
* Knitting, crafting and puttering this weekend.
* Blessings all around.

Giddy about:

* Sleeping in tomorrow morning...and Friday...Saturday...Sunday!
* The carrots and beets still hiding under their fall covers, sweetening with everyday.
* The one-day-soon when I'll be smelling a little baby head.

Scared of:

* Being paralyzed by fear. Better to say "no" to fear all around.

Deeply inspired by:

* The Charter for Compassion (see link at the bottom of this page).
* My darlin's gentle and patient ways.
* Everything written by Wendell Berry.

Obsessed with:

* Beautiful yarn
* The colors of roasted pumpkin, butternut squash, cranberry cordial, kale...gorgous!

In love with:

* The man with the auburn ponytail and the beautiful hazel eyes

Haunted by:

* The thought of all of those who won't have a heaping table full of feasting tomorrow. And those that have never had the incredible luxuries that we enjoy everyday.

Saved by:

* Hope and determination.

What about you?

What the World Needs Now...

I came upon this Charter for Compassion in my few minutes of checking in with my cyber-neighbors today. I am inspired. Maybe you will be as well...

http://www.youtube.com/CharterforCompassion

Some stress, some relief and some serious gratitude!

Stress is getting a call from your husband in the middle of the afternoon, telling you he's been in an accident, driven off the road, into a ditch, that he's fine but shaken and to please leave work immediately to rescue him from the side of the road. Low level freak-out in prairie-dog land. I've never shut down the computer, locked everything up, notified the boss and raced for the car so fast!

When I arrived at the scene that Michael had directed me to, I saw a crowd gathered, no husband, and a tow truck straining to haul something out of a deep culvert. Gulp! Luckily, then I saw Michael, leaning against the side of a building, off in a quiet corner, looking rattled and pale.

Relief is seeing for myself that he's relatively unscathed. A troubling back twinge which showed up about an hour after the accident, (soon to be checked out medically) but none of the gruesome possibilities that flooded my brain as they hauled his wrecked car out of the big deep hole. Relief also that the woman who was entirely at fault for the accident did eventually admit her responsibility and was cited with a traffic violation. His poor car even made the front page of the local paper.

Gratitude is looking at this wonderful man who I married ten short months ago, and thanking my lucky stars for every minute of time I have with him safely tucked in our little corner of this big planet. I am truly blessed.

Hope

Well, I've been doing a lot of reading, seeking, reaching for hope lately. Getting hyper focused on the "news" from media outlets, overhearing too many mindless, soul-less conversations, and even looking closely at the sides of the road on my way to work, all leave me in a dark place. I know it is important to be aware of these realities, if only to push against them and strive for better (for humanity, for the environment, for the future). But it is a tricky balance. And often my eyes and ears are almost desperately casting about for something bright and good to land on.

In a Mind Body Workshop I recently attended, we were encouraged to spend a little bit of dedicated time everyday to appreciating, noting, listing things that brought us joy, gave us hope and positively influenced our day.

Here are a few of mine:

• One bright orange giant zinnia blooming/blazing in a mass of green after a torrential thunderstorm

• A very elderly gent on his daily walk down the soggy morning street in a hot pink t-shirt

• Ten minutes of lovely morning quiet to sip my coffee and read

• Greg Greenway's song "Standing on the Side of Love" with the soul-tugging strains of Pat Wictor's slide guitar...the best kind of music for a morning commute!

• The man with the shiny bald head and twirly mustache who kindly held the door for me this morning

• The discovery of another amazing family making a change at Path to Freedom

What's bringing you hope today?